They left the i out of the first FIFA.. instead it says FFA will establish a Congress Review Worling Group.

Thats why you spell check .

Nah. It can go.

im alright with the cap. what i dont understand is why it is so small.  it needs to be much bigger and this marquee bullshit needs to be turfed.

I understand but if you wanted to preserve the flaws of the current model then you can do that by advocating to not have a second division

Your idea seems well thought out and it needs a proper system at the top to support it. If you have in mind the first tier as it currently is then your proposal wont work. If you have in mind a sensible open structure then a second tier doesn't need a salary cap

Both need to go.

There is still a cap in W League, just City actually decided to spend the full amount
Anyway, I dont like the cap either, but it would be crazy to have a 2nd div with no cap while the 1st div has one

The one thing I dont agree with is a salary cap

I don't know when a salary cap became a standard requirement for absolutely everything but its needless. The 3+1 rule stops teams buying the league and by virtue of being a second division you wont see millions of dollars thrown at playing squads. And if you do its a bonus

Each team will get a minimal grant from the FFA and if owners overspend and walk away then the minimal grant keeps the club ticking away until a new owner can be found

The league wont get "boring with the same tem winning each season" because after a few years the league winner will disappear into the A League. And salary restrictions for a demoted team will make it too hard for them to climb back out

What City did to the W League for what is effectively a semi pro league is incredible. No point whatsoever in deterring that level of investment in our young players just out of fear a dozen Tasmanian fans might get sad and walk away from a league nobody is watching anyway

I dont know how hard it is to just to get the top 3 teams from each NPL (except WA and NT due to travel costs), chuck them in the same league. Remain Semi-pro for a few seasons, raise their cap and match VISA allocations to the A-League Rules. Throw in a 2 televised games a week. And boom. Theres your 2nd Div.

In short for the first few seasons it will pretty much be an NPL league for the better teams, with higher spending and better coverage.

Maybe not 3 from each but,
-NSW: 3
-NNSW: 3
-QLD: 2
-ACT: 1
-TAS: 1
-VIC: 3
-SA: 1

Home and away season, 28 games.

When P&R comes in. 1st team gets automatic promotion, 2nd and 3rd have to play home and away to their respective bottom 2 teams from HAL. Hence you have an extra 4 games for those metrics....

They do actually

I think we can accept the fact that a stand alone model with 16 equally balanced franchises is unviable and is little more than a dream

So we either manage an unbalanced tier with or without a second division. The latter is in danger of becoming stale

And that is a good thing? I would argue that having multiple pathways is a definite improvement. 

Except that right now there is no incentive for those clubs to be fully professional in the State-based NPL setup. To say that if they could be professional they would be is not right at all.

Even without any defined criteria from the FFA we have a number of existing clubs who have indicated an interest in the next A-League licenses (South Melbourne, Brisbane City, Adelaide City, Wollongong Wolves).  If nothing else that should tell you that they have both the ambition and ability to become professional in the right environment.

The fact that some don't see youth development as a priority in all of this especially the FFA and the a-league clubs has got me worried as to how the whole new structure will be set up.

How many in the negotiating table are prioritising youth development in there proposed models to the FIFA/AFC? I haven't heard one peep so far...

Out of the Golden Generation that appeared in the 2006 squad, every player went through an NSL club from there youth, there was no external players that did not go through the local pathways unlike the current team. 

Yes but these semi pro clubs cant afford to go fully pro right now. If they could they would be fully pro. Some are in better places than others. Having a fully pro 2nd div is the goal for youth and football development, otherwise just watch npl finals. I cant see enough money coming in for a new 2nd div in the short or mid term in corporate sponsorships, tv deals, etc etc to allow them to become fully pro teams. Ffa will just try and trash any 2nd div and should not be trusted, even if they offer money for a 2nd div theyd probably try and use said leverage to trash it. Transfer fees and pro rel would help but again ffa will fight that. No agenda here just feeling the other side hold all of the cards and ill have to wait until hell freezes over to see a pro canberra team

You serious Angus, spot on sthmelb.
Right now we have 2 forces going opposite directions and the Youth in lalaland what other case do you need to look at.

What makes you say that? You only have to look at the amount of players that went from juniors to seniors at the same club. We will never have anything as organic as that again.

From the outset this has been club funded so I see no other reason to promote this myth that it isn't as anything other than agenda driven

Need to find a way to fund a 2nd div outside of the ffa otherwise it will never happen. Im not convinced that throwing together semi pro teams will open the money tree enough for it to eventually progress to a fully pro league. This must be its goal for the skill and youth development in this country. The corporate dollar really isnt that interested in football, tv isnt going to pay jack look what happened with the a league and the ffa doesnt want a league of angry npl and regions competing with their fully controlled a league; a 2nd div would be demanding pro rel, have all sorts of uncontrolled opinions about the game, teams might collapse -sure happened in AL as well- etc etc
Dont get me wrong, i see the 2nd div as the best chance for a pro canberra team but am not feeling too optimistic about it right now

We really should have a real good look at this assumption one of these days. I am not convinced that this was actually the case.

which parts of the Crawford report are the FFA obliged to follow ?

One other Critical item

The FFA would still be responsible for the Governance of Youth Development as per Crawford report.

Correct.

If FFA had any brains,they would set up a second division and promise promotion to the top finishing team for something like four years.
That would create interest in both the second divsion and HAL and stop this free ride into the top division as long as you have cash and fish to grease up FFA.
Anyway we know that wont happen and dysfunctionality will reign supreme .Because we are different.

The ideal would be if not only the 2nd division closed the gap to the a league but if our top division was boosted enough so that standouts can go straight into the starting eleven at big 5 clubs

The second division is vital to start closing the gap between the A-league and NPL. Right now the step up is too large which is partly why we don't see many players go from NPL to A-league successfully.

Take baby steps.  Keep it semi-pro as the state NPLs are ATM.  In the 2nd Div throw a little bit more money at the clubs over the travel costs and let them afford a few extra and better players.

I don't believe the 2nd Div should be contrived like the plastic HAL but left to how good clubs from the state NPLs are.

Let it start with the best club from each state and then let promotion from the lower NPLs clear out the dead wood.

So be it it it ends up with a club with real history like Wollongong and some plastic South Sydney club in on division above the other.  Imagine the derbies if they ever play in the same league or the FFA cup.  That's what P&R does, it spices up things.

I reckon the main reason why the FFA are cold on a pro 2nd div is it kinda steps on "their" plans for HAL expansion. So, hypothetically if a pro 2nd div was announced for next year, you can almost guarantee a club like the Wolves would certainly be part of it. The FFA would see that as a potential conflict to their clearly favored Southern Sydney expansion proposal. They would be concerned that Wollongong people would not support a 'Southern Sydney' club if Wollongong has a club in a pro 2nd div. That is just one example, of which there would be plenty of other examples all around the country. It all stems from the seriously flawed HAL model, which was setup without an eye to the future to things like a pro 2nd div or P&R. The need for and independently HAL has never been more important. 

I think regardless of where you stand on expansion, P/R and the way forward, you would have to agree that for all its faults the NSL provided a better development pathway than what we currently have.

Perhaps the initial success of the A League has caused us the problem we have now of continually recycling the same players and looking overseas instead of our own backyard.

I've just had the thought that a 2nd tier, even without P/R, would hopefully motivate players to be at their best regardless of where their team sits on the table. With a 2nd division of hungry aspiring players on your heals every A League player should feel unease - especially if their team is not doing well...

We require a second division so our Youth have a pathway. Any one against this proposal is against the aspiration of Australian Youth.

It's as simple as that.